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I should not omit to state here, that the clergy expect none but Roman Catholics to conform with the requirements of college discipline in this particular. They do not compel Protestant students to kneel with them, but simply direct them to meet on Sundays in some room where they may read their Bibles together. I will even go farther, and say that no efforts are made to gain proselytes among that class of students; nothing of the kind, to my recollection at least, ever occurred during my residence at St. H.

What I have stated of the religious exercises, as a proof of the essentially ecclesiastical character of discipline in the Canadian college, is amply borne out by the censorial care with which the Faculty permit the reading of authors by the students. The class-books must always receive the approbation of the Church authorities before they can be used, and have generally been prepared under the editorial charge of a Jesuit. The libraries furnish none but orthodox works. All the philosophers of antiquity, those of the French Revolution, and our later day, are withheld from the young men. The histories are conservative and Jesuitical. None are permitted to read a book which does not excommunicate every participator in the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty, or which says any good of the French empire and its master. The dramatists and poets are dealt out in morsels or badly garbled shapes. Nothing is known of Shakspeare, except through the miserable imitations of Ducis. Milton is too much of a heretic to be on familiar terms with the Faculty, and Byron too great a rake-he is never mentioned, while the former is only spoken of in connection with (I believe) Delille's translation of his poem. But very learned disquisitions are read upon the German Klopstock's "Messiade," if the work itself be not inflicted upon the students from one fly-leaf to the other. It is nearly the same thing with Le Cid's Portuguese Epic, and the Swiss Gessner's "Abel." Tasso gets a little attention, but in snatches only. Burns and Tom Moore are as unknown as unborn New Zealanders. Frenchmen themselves are treated only a little better. All that is furnished of the brothers Corneille, the Rousseaus, Racine, Boileau, Voltaire, Chateaubriand, Lamennais and Lamartine, is a specimen of the style of each, embodied in a manuscript class-book, known as Livre de BellesLettres.

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The Latin poets are also disposed of in a very superficial manner. Ovid, Horace, and Virgil, are given out in detached passages. The student is not required to become intimately acquainted with those authors themselves; indeed, good care is taken that he shall not; he is expected to grow familiar only with the language in which they wrote, so that he may be duly qualified to read a Latin Breviary and Rubrique, should he ever embrace the ministry. Thus the fourth book of the Eneid is particularly forbidden ground; but often a student devotes more attention to its right comprehension than he bestows on all the other books put together.

The Faculty are likewise the censors of every book in the possession of the collegians, and confiscate or burn up all works that they condemn as obnoxious. I shall never forget how sincerely I mourned "the loss by fire" of a new collection of French anecdotes, some of which, unfortunately for the Parisian "Joe Miller" and his proprietor, made light of certain gallant Abbés. On ano ther occasion I was warned that a Mythological Dictionary which I had would be forfeited should I ever consult it again. A neat little edition of the "Proverbs," which an uncle had given me, was seized upon; and that was the last I ever saw of them-in that shape, at least. The prudish Directeur pounced upon a splendid Atlas, belonging to my neighbor in study, because the frontispiece revealed good old Mother Earth, with her plurality of breasts, in "a low-necked dress." The owner had reconciled himself to the loss of a very valuable work, when, shortly after, it was returned to him, with a garment of wafers plastered over the poor deity's bosom !

Once in a while, however, we evaded the vigilance of our censors; and thus I managed to devour "Orlando Furioso," the "Arabian Nights," "Gil Blas," "Don Quixote," and other proscribed works. On one occasion I was all absorbed with Cheataubriand's American novel of "Atala," when I was "caught in the act." I had reached a very affecting passage in the book, and, as I could shed tears more easily then than I can now, my eyes were brimful. I begged-I entreated to be allowed to finish it. But the "Prof." was inexorable, and had no more compassion for me than he could have had for the poor Indian maid's sorrows over which I was weeping. He snatched the precious book from me, and prescribed the copying of four pages of Noël's French and Latin Dictionary during play-hours, as an antidote against the poison I might have im

bibed from the author of "La Génie du Christianisme."

The secular newspapers of the day were strictly prohibited, and no one could discuss politics or other matters of public interest, lest he should hazard opinions unpalatable to the casuists of the college. A debating club was tolerated in 1836; but, because the animating politics of that period threw one of its sessions into a very happy Congressional scene, the "Prex." played Cromwell with us, and adjourned. our deliberations sine die.

Our correspondence was, of course, under strict surveillance, and woe to the billet-doux that was intercepted! The Faculty held that species of composition in holy horror. Every thing they could say or do was employed to guard us against the blandishments of dear woman. The Virgin Mary could be loved; but every other member of the sex, excepting those ladies who perished at the stake, and are immortalized in martyrology, was presented to us in no very prepossessing light. Had we believed those sainted woman-haters, it was quite as dangerous to meet one's grandmother at noon-day, as to run against a pretty cousin of "sweet sixteen" behind the door. We were, accordingly, very cautious how we cast our eyes about when at the parish church, or in walking out on holidays. Flirtations were necessarily rare. The most noted affair that I now have in mind is a bold swain, who fell head over ears in love with the daughter of the proud Seigneuresse at the village manor. But, -alas! for "the course of true love,"his passion went unrequited, and his sonnets to the infuriated Prex.," who thought proper to expose the poor fellow's secrets in presence of the whole Communauté. The young man was afterwards styled Monsieur le Seigneur.

Solicitous as the Faculty were of our Platonism, they could not very well do without the presence of women in the institution. But such as they had were a great deal worse than none. A glance at the most passable among them froze the heart-a Gorgon's head could not have done it more effectually. Those females were old, blear-eyed, horribly marked with the small-pox, and of the most unamiable tempers in the world. Such a collection of unapproachable Vestals, Mr. Barnum himself, indefatigable as he is in the pursuit of novelties, could never have assembled in one room together. His achievement with the Ceylon elephants is child's play compared with the success that crowned the Faculty in seeking out the repulsive in petticoats.

We were not even permitted to choose

our laundresses, although we were obliged to pay our washing-bills. They lived in the village, and came every Saturday afternoon to the parloir, but made no advances, in word or expression, to romantic young men.

But, perhaps, I should not be so severe in my reflections upon all the women connected with the college. I ought to except a fine old lady who presided over the hospital department. She had been a good-looking person in her day, and was a very tender nurse. I owe her a debt of gratitude. She was sparing of bad tisanes or herb-teas, whenever I was taken suddenly ill with an indisposition to perform any arduous task set before me. I will even admit that I was never an unwelcome patient; for she always said I was "a good boy to take medicine." Once, however, we had a serious misunderstanding. It arose all about a miserable potion of salts, the efficiency of which I took the liberty of doubting. She insisted. I demurred, and expressed implicit faith in the vis medicatrix Naturæ. The matron was determined; and left me to the alternative of swallowing the detestable stuff, or returning to copy two hundred lines in Virgil, as punishment for a naughtiness I need not mention here. My choice was soon made,-the salts vanished, but only to return more precipitately than they had disappeared. This settled the point, and ever afterwards the kind old lady administered to my extraordinary ailments with a gentle and considerate hand.

I said that the matron must have been a rather fair looking woman in earlier life; her daughter, who came to visit her for a few weeks, was quite pretty. But, what was a calamity for the peace and quiet of the collegians, she was a young widow. Regardless of "Mr. Weller's " admonitions to "Sammy," the Faculty admitted her within their walls. Her advent was the signal for an epidemic among the elder students. The sanitary condition of the institution was probably never worse than at that epoch. Young men were stricken down in all their vigor. and the "Infirmerie" was soon too small to receive them. The cases, too, had never been so inveterate before. Treatment of the most violent nature was adopted in many instances; but dose after dose disappeared, and the sufferers still continued in agonies.

The matron's skill was baffled, as well as the village Galen's. In vain did they put their wise heads together, and devise hot baths and cold, mustard on the soles of the feet, ice around the head, and even emetics; every thing failed. The only

improvement noticeable in the patients occurred when the exhausted old lady called in the assistance of her widowed daughter. Sunken eyes would brighten at her presence, and pale cheeks grow ruddy. Heart-rending groans were silenced, and the poor patients gained strength enough to converse with her.

The Faculty were for once at fault. They suspected every thing but the true cause of this "general affection of the heart," which at length was accidentally discovered. The widow, having singled out a couple of good-looking fellows as her favorite patients, made rivals who had to be jealous. They quarelled. The feud spread from bed to bed more wildly than the epidemic which had prostrated them. Now that there was a · Helen among them, their energies were aroused; contention grew rife, and, to the Directeur's horror, he one day surprised the patients he expected to find very nearly in articulo, loudly abusing one another in a strain that ill became death-bed scenesall about the little widow lady!

The President opened his eyes in a moment to the real state of affairs in the infirmary, and drove every impostor out of bed, with copious prescriptions of pinçons, or supernumerary tasks, to be performed during hours of recreation. As for the innocent cause of so much devotion, strife, and anguish, the Faculty politely requested her to abridge her stay with her mother.

With this episode which is not at all hyperbolical-I might dismiss my subject, were I not apprehensive that the vein in which I have been writing might leave an erroneous impression as to my design upon the reader's mind. Therefore, a few reflections upon the educational system I have described, will not be amiss, in order to set it in the light where it ought to be considered.

I have said already that the Canadian clergy seek evidently to prepare a young man, in their colleges, for nothing else but a place in their ranks. Therefore, if that young man choose a worldly avocation, his eyes are dazzled by the multiplied phases into which the life he has entered revolves around him. Feelings and opinions that he never dreamt of before, assail the narrow conceptions which he has been taught to nourish in his mind. He comes forth like a man long withdrawn from the light of the sun, to find himself amid new and wonderful objects, which he cannot grasp, because he is too busy with their contemplation. He remains stationary, like a stone that sinks to the bottom of a flowing river, and drags on his life like an oyster-knowing little of others,

and quite unknown himself. But, if not carried beneath the surface at his début, the wave may float him slowly onward; and, after a while, like a drowning kitten, he will strike out for himself to reach a landing-place somewhere. If, on the other hand, his be a buoyant temperament, rushing wildly like a colt from the halter, he plunges into the swiftest of the stream, to wreck himself a little way below, like a paltry bubble as he is.

Once in the world,"-as they say,he has no practical notions of life to fall back upon. Instead of having been taught to earn his bread, he has been taught to pray for it; and by this I do not mean to speak irreverently of sacred things, I mean simply that the student finds his hand fashioned to nothing but the altar and pulpit. In those colleges, where instruction purports to be given in the ele ments as well as in the more advanced branches of learning, it is remarkable how deficient a scholar is in commercial qualifications or mechanics. The knowledge which he has acquired may serve him in professional pursuits; but then, he will have a great many things to unlearn, a great many prejudices to cast off. before he can form views of principles and men, at all compatible with the position he assumes in society.

A jealous conservatism presides over Canadian collegiate education. The proscription of newspapers, to which I have alluded, proves my assertion to be correct. Therefore, in view of the fact that, until within a few years, the priesthood have held all the French educational establishments of the country under their immediate control; we can easily account for the backward state of things in "Lower Canada," and the tameness of the population.

They rebelled in 1837 and 1838, and in the face of their clergy's denunciations and threats of eternal punishment, if they bore arms against their sovereign. But the very brief struggle which they maintained, when circumstances could not have been more favorable, shows that, whatever their disposition was, they had no capacity to succeed in acting in accordance with its dictates;-that was the fault of their national education. The less patient among them-those young men who had left college to detest every kind of authority, and every thing that emanated from sacerdotal lips-rushed into the contest without preconcerted arrangements. The mass, long smarting under colonial tyranny, flew blindly in their lead, to fight like a mob, and be beaten into subjection by a handful of soldiery. Moving spirits and followers, all had been brought up in

the schools of their childhood and youth, to cringe and submit, like serfs, before the prestige of authority. Suffering alone could goad them into rebellion, as it can an irrational being; but like that being, their struggle was short and disastrous to themselves. Louis Joseph Papineau, the master spirit of that epoch, and a relative of the greatest tory that ever filled the bishopric of Montreal, complained that the young men had taken the bit between their teeth and run wild; but he, prenant l'épouvante, in good earnest, ran unlike the rest, to stop only when in snug quarters in northern Vermont, and thus ended the Lower Canadian insurrection,-something in the manner of a rebellion at college!

The only men who evinced any determination, and gave the most alarm to the government, were the Upper-Canadians, and one or two Protestant gentlemen in the Lower Province. Indeed, the only victory won by the insurgents, was fought under one of those patriots, against a superior force of well-disciplined troops of the line.

But when I draw this distinction, I must not be understood as preaching the merits of one religious denomination over those of another. I lay stress upon a point only, which must be obvious to the most superficial historical reader. He will agree with me that, wherever the State and the Church rule the subject together, be it in the name of Pope Pius IX., or that of "Victoria, Queen Defender of the Faith," the people there will be the least qualified to assert and maintain their rights. They may struggle like the Irish or the Italians, but it is for a little while only. They may succeed even in casting off dynasties, like the French or the Mexicans; but they can no more affirm their movements into an enduring existence, than the college-boys who rise against the Faculty. A Louis XVI., or an Iturbide, may be dethroned; but independence does not succeed one or the other over the administration of public affairs. Atrocious anarchy rules for a while, and the people at last fall an easy prey to speculators or demagogues. The day comes for one or two Bonapartes, or a Santa Anna, and that is the upshot of a nation's struggle for liberty and her blessings. Selfgovernment-in the strictest acceptation of the term-cannot go into successful operation where a long period of clerical or kingly despotism is suddenly brought to an end. The people who have been serfs for centuries together, cannot become sovereigns in a month or a year. Revolution with them is not regeneration. They must undergo trials by fire and the sword;

and when the ordeal has purified them, they may hope then for the possession of a freedom, gentle, just, and good.

The exemplification of the truth of what I assert lies in our own history. Nowhere else, probably, the theory of self-government could have been more successfully carried into effect than on this continent. The "Spirit of '76" was identified in purpose and determination with the spirit of the "Pilgrim Fathers." The sires left their homes to flee religious intolerance, and sought a wilderness where to worship their Creator as best they thought. The dangers and hardships which they met and overcame, enhanced the value of those immunities which had been denied them in the lap of ease and luxury. They struggled, and toiled, and laid the seed of a race which alone could do the work of our revolutionary times. The sons would brook despotism no more than their fathers. Like those, they took God to witness the righteousness of their cause; then pledging to each other "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor," they fought well and patiently, and at last remained masters of their own destinies and persons. Thus was American independence won, and rooted into the very soil we tread, and that grows the bread we feed upon. A barricade or a pronunciamento could never have done

that.

But, to return to Canada. We now have every reason to expect better things for the future in that country. The insurrectionary movement of 1837 has not been without its good. A large number of the "patriots" came to this country, of which the Canadians had never entertained a very flattering opinion, because of their limited intercourse with it. As the majority of the refugees were men of intelligence, they soon corrected the erroneous impressions they had imbibed of the American character. They likewise paid close attention to our institutions, and the machinery which their spirit animated as if with the breath of life. They could compare their unfortunate country with this prosperous land, and their eyes saw, for the first time, how republicanism could administer itself to a nation of millions. Wild theories which they had struggled but for an hour to establish at home, vanished before the evidences of a practical way of becoming and remaining free men. They learned a great lesson in political ethics, and treasured it in their hearts, and when they could return to their firesides, they spoke of all they had seen, and the people no longer looked upon their neighbors with derision. Those whom they were in the habit of stigmatizing as "sharp

ers," and whom they sneered at as "Bostonais," became the objects of their admiration. Soon the spirit that had quietly but surely introduced itself under almost every habitant's roof, reached the lawgiver. The American municipal systemthat first great wheel in the mechanism of self-government-was enacted by the House of Assembly. Then came the establishment of common schools after an admirable plan. And now that country, endowed by Providence with capacities to take rank in this Confederacy of Powers, is steadily progressing in that schooling which will soon qualify her to sit in the great American National Council.

The subject of annexation is openly discussed, and has its French and English press. The feudal tenure, which has lain like an incubus upon the province, is in danger of abrogation. The GovernorGeneral must choose his cabinet out of the majorities in Parliament, and dismiss them the moment they lose the confidence of those majorities. The only irresponsible body which he appoints, and over which the people can exercise no controlling influence, is the "Legislative Council;" but here, also, there are symptoms of a reform that cannot be long delayed. These councillors who form the "Upper House," and who hold the position of "Senate," or "House of Lords," will, at no distant date, hold their authority directly from the people themselves, for an "Elective Council" is being loudly called for. And thus have reforms progressed for the past ten years, and every day some important modification is made in Canadian public affairs, which does its share in preparing them for future aggregation with our own.

This spirit of cautious and healthy innovation receives strength from the familiar intercourse which has sprung up between the two countries, and which is daily on the increase. Our railroads place Montreal at the doors almost of Boston or New-York. Yankee enterprise is invading the province with its dollars and cents, its labor-saving machines and steam-engines. It finds no stubborn prejudices to contend against, but is every where received with open arms, like a friend and deliverer, which it certainly is.

Other results have followed rapidly in the wake of the political disturbances of 1837'38, and are manifesting themselves even where the clergy hold their sway. I owe it to them to say that they submit to the innovating tendencies of the times, with more of good grace than we had any reason to expect at their hands. They are modifying their educational system, so as to make a young man more a citizen than VOL. 1.-26

a quasi-Jesuit. Their establishments, convents as well as colleges, are conducted with a more liberal discipline than formerly, and the "rising generation" is growing up with lofty inspirations in place of cringing instincts. The college at Quebec has recently been chartered into a University, where the highest and most thorough instruction will be given, instead of the one-sided "drilling" that had for years marked the collegiate course in Canada. The institution where I attended has become literally more of an alma mater. The prison-like building which we occupied, has been abandoned for a more prepossessing edifice, over which the gloom of a dungeon does not brood, as it did over the former structure, where we felt like galley-slaves, and thought more intently of plans of escape or rebellion than upon thesis or recitation.

Further, and in conclusion, I should state, in all fairness to the Roman Catholic priests of the Canadians, that they are not alone to blame for having so long delayed the adoption of a liberal educational system. That system, such as it was, was far better than none; and none at all we should have had ever since the confiscation by Government of the "Jesuits' estates," had it not been for the priests. And because they sought to inculcate their doctrines in the minds of the young whom they educated so cheaply, they are not amenable to a rigorous bar, even in this country, where every religious denomination has its favorite academies, institutes, or universities, in which each teaches its children in its respective way. I will even exculpate the clergy so far as to say, that they had a good reason to preserve their peculiar notions, so long as parents were to be found, some of them even Protestants, who were willing to place their sons under their tuition. The people, in whom lies the faculty of ascertaining what public reforms are needed, and, circumstances permitting, the power to obtain them, are very much to blame in Canada if they remained satisfied with that state of things, and must abide the consequences of their indifference on this all-important subject. A writer in the "Edinburgh Review," of 1832, while speaking of the improvement of the masses in the British Colonies by the more favored among them, sets this matter in its correct light, so far as it weighs upon the priests. Says he :-"This (the improvement) can only be done by the people themselves; and better, in the first instance, by a people under many small governments, than under one large one; better by men left to themselves to find out and remedy their own wants, than if train

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